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Sunday, June 20, 2004

Political mudslinging

There’s an interesting rundown in today’s SF Chronicle by Bill Whalen on political mudslinging from the days of yore. (Yesteryear's political mudslingers put Bush and Kerry to shame The 2004 campaign features whining.) Political mudslinging goes back to the beginning of American politics. It’s how men of good will think they can get elected. For instance:

[John] Adams' foes accused him of being a closet monarchist. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was the William Jefferson Clinton of his time: You name the insult, he endured it. Jefferson's enemies portrayed him as an atheist, a Francophile, and a war wimp for not enlisting in 1775.

It’s still early, but even with the new campaign reform laws, I suspect we’ll soon be in the thick of it. Especially here in Illinois, where the closer it gets to the elections, the uglier it gets. Actually, in the recent past, so-called third-party organizations did the majority of the mudslinging in Illinois without divulging who paid for the ads. That has now changed. And it’s a change for the better.

Posted by Marie at June 20, 2004 2:59 PM